“I am sure you would. I think it would be a very happy and blessed thing for you both, and I have no doubt that her father will think so too. Now, here are the others coming home, and you must behave like a rational being, even though you don’t see Essie at tea.”
Mother Carey managed to catch Jock, give a hint of the situation, and bid him take care of his friend. He looked grave. “I thought it was coming,” he said. “I wish they would have done it out of our way.”
“So do I, but I didn’t take measures in time.”
“Well, it is all right as regards them both, but poor Bobus will hardly get over it.”
“We must do our best to soften the shock, and, as it can’t be helped, we must put our feelings in our pocket.”
“As one has to do most times,” said Jock. “Well, I suppose it is better for one in the end than having it all one’s own way. And Evelyn is a generous fellow, who deserves anything!”
“So, Jock, as we can do Bobus no good, and know besides that nothing could make it right for his hopes to be fulfilled, we must throw ourselves into this present affair as Cecil and Essie deserve.”
“All right, mother,” he said. “There’s not stuff in her to be of much use to Bobus if he had her, besides the other objection. It is the hope that he will sorely miss, poor old fellow!”
“Ah! if he had a better hope lighted as his guiding star! But we must not stand talking now, Jock; I must take her to Church quietly with me.”
To Cecil’s consternation, his military duties would detain him all the forenoon of the next day; and before he could have started, the train that brought John back also brought his father and mother, the latter far more eager and effusive than her sister-in-law had ever seen her. “My dear Caroline, I thought you’d excuse my coming, I was so anxious to see about my little girl, and we’ll go to an hotel.”